


What Selfishness Isn't

by Wei (wei_jiangling)



Category: Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:50:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wei_jiangling/pseuds/Wei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Selfishness Isn't

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AkinoAme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkinoAme/gifts).



> Dedicated to AkinoAme, who I think is responsible for inspiring my thoughts on this in several different ways. Also because I just had to leave in the middle of reading Ghost Stories chapter 2 to go write it all down.

This isn't betrayal. 

It's not, even as his fingers wrap around the detective's throat and he steals back a body that's never been rightfully his. This is what they should expect, especially when the last thing he remembers Eiji saying about it is that he only let Ankh stay because Hina allowed it and that as soon as he wasn't in immediate danger it wouldn't matter if she changed her mind, and when the last thing Eiji did was to break three of his cores, even if that was done to set him free. This is what he always said he would do and while Eiji may have his gratitude, he's never professed to have given him or Hina or anyone else his loyalty.

It's met with shouts of outrage, to think about what Hina feels, to think about how much Eiji has done for him. To give back the detective, because for some reason they still think it's their right to decide what happens to him. This body isn't theirs any more than it is his. Hina wants her brother back, because she's human, and a person wanting to protect their family is the oldest desire in the book. Eiji wants that too--for her, because he never wants anything for his own sake, and because he's always on her side. Ankh wants his human puppet with all its senses intact because he likes it, because unlike Eiji, he only ever wants anything for his own benefit, and he's never said anything otherwise. To him, there's no right, no wrong, here. Only three desires in conflict, and he finally has the power to fight for his. 

This isn't betrayal; this is obvious. Eiji may have saved him, but he has no reason to protect him now, and Ankh no longer needs protecting, so what else should he do? He lets the detective speak for a moment. It's as much of a consolation as they'll get. 

He makes his way to the Greeed headquarters, joking about old friends, and Mezul, at least, understands. Alliances are about convenience. Not about trust. Not about caring. Here, he doesn't need to say that his motives are his own or that there won't be any reason to stay once the need for cooperating has passed. He doesn't need to repeat it like a broken record only to have people react with shock, horror, and rage when he does what he's been saying all along. Here, he doesn't say it, and they expect it anyway. And when he turns from this group, it won't be betrayal, because they already know. They understand. 

His hand goes to his elbow where it's no longer severed, a phantom of an old pain he'll never forget, that he won't inflict, but that he saw on the faces of Eiji and Hina regardless. He meets those victimized faces burned into his memory head on because that isn't something he did to them. He never asked them to trust him. He never asked them be friends. He never hid his intentions. He didn't try to build anything, and so there shouldn't have been anything to rip away. He warned them, over and over again, and if they were hurt because they were too stupid to listen and too stubborn in their capacity to care, then that's their own fault, not his.

Ankh is selfish. He's rude and unkind and dangerous and any number of other unflattering descriptions that he would freely admit and that would roll off him without sticking nearly as hard as the looks in the eyes of two people he shouldn't—doesn't—care about, and has never claimed to.

Ankh isn't someone who betrays.


End file.
